Hoax Museum Blog: Food

If you kiss someone at Chipotle do you get a free burrito? —
The rumor going around is that if you kiss someone while standing in line at Chipotle this Valentine's Day, you'll be rewarded with a free burrito. But on their facebook page, a Chipotle rep refers to this as a "a bad Internet rumor."

Someone else wanted to know if they kissed the burrito itself would it be free. Chipotle says you're free to kiss the burrito, but you're still going to have to pay.

Posted: Thu Feb 14, 2013.   Comments (1)

Prisoners request kosher meals — Columbian.com reports that there appears to have been a dramatic increase in Jewish prisoners at Washington State prisons, based on food requests at these institutions. The evidence: in 2011 approximately 1 percent of the inmates requested special kosher meals. But now, 2 years later, almost 11 percent of inmates are requesting them.

Federal law requires that the state honors religious dietary requests. The problem is that the kosher meals are more expensive than normal meals — $6.80 more expensive per day, for each request. However, "experts are dubious of some prisoners' sincerity." That is, they doubt all these prisoners really are Jewish.

Gary Friedman, a former Jewish corrections chaplain and "a leading authority on dietary rules and regulations in the United States corrections system," theorizes that the prisoners have figured out a way to get what they think is safer, better food:

"The primary motivation is, they think it's safer. I can't count how many times it's happened, how many times it has come up, that you hear stories how (jails) buy food that is out of date or how inmate workers are tainting the food. So they think (kosher meals) are safer and it is of better quality."

Prisons can't deny the requests outright. So what they're doing instead is monitoring the behavior of the prisoners outside of the food hall — observing what items they purchase from the prison store and what they barter for. If the prisoners are caught engaging in non-Jewish behavior, their kosher food privileges are revoked.


Posted: Sun Jan 27, 2013.   Comments (2)

The Giant Egg Hoax of 1986 — On April 13, 1986, at 5:15 AM, Douglas Arling of Warwick, Rhode Island went out to the chicken coop in his yard and checked on his 9-year-old Araconda chicken. To his astonishment, he found she had laid a massive egg measuring 5x3 inches, and weighing half-a-pound. As he watched, the chicken tumbled to the floor, apparently exhausted by the effort she had just gone through.




Ruth Arling (Douglas's wife) with the giant egg and the chicken she thought laid it

When word of the giant egg reached the press, it made national news. But the egg wasn't all it was cracked up to be. Two weeks later, Arling's neighbor, George Sousa, confessed that the giant egg was his handiwork.

The egg, Sousa explained, was really a hard-boiled goose egg that a co-worker had brought to work. "I had never seen such a big egg," he told a Providence Journal reporter, "and knowing Dougie raises chickens, I thought it would be funny if he went out in the morning and found the giant egg — never realizing he would think it was a production from one of his chickens."


According to worldrecordsacademy.org, the current holder of the title of the World's Biggest Chicken Egg is an egg laid in June 2009 by a chicken owned by Chinese farmer Zhang Yinde. The egg weighed 201 grams (.44 pounds), and measured 9.2cm x 6.3cm (3.6 x 2.4 inches). So the Rhode Island goose egg was a bit bigger.


Posted: Sun Jul 15, 2012.   Comments (1)

The Coke Bag Hoax — Recently a video began circulating that appeared (despite suspiciously poor production values) to be an advertisement by Coca-Cola announcing a new "Coca-Cola-Bag." The idea was to do away with selling Coke in bottles and switch to biodegradable plastic bags made "in the unique Coca-Cola bottle shape."



The video claimed the idea came from Central America where many consumers supposedly already buy Coke in plastic bags in order to avoid paying the bottle deposit.

Gizmodo, Digital Journal, and WKMG Orlando were among those who posted about the video.

But Just-Drinks.com now says it has received confirmation from the Coca-Cola Co. that the Coke Bag is a hoax — though not one Coca-Cola was responsible for. The company says it has no idea who created the video.

Given the references to Central America, and the idea of Coke bags, I'm guessing the video may be an elaborate drug-themed joke.


Posted: Tue Jul 10, 2012.   Comments (4)


The Bethel, Alaska Taco Bell Hoax — Bethel, Alaska is a small town. Travel writer Harry Franck, writing in the early 1940s, offered this description of it:
Sidewalk lounging New Yorkers would mistake Bethel at the mouth of the Kuskokwim for the end of the earth. But I found it interesting. For one thing I saw there my first Eskimos, at least in their native habitat. Bethel has a truck, too, and maybe a mile and a half of road... Then there is Bethel's boardwalk, a resounding wooden sidewalk that runs the whole length of the single-row town -- and beyond, vaulting a minor stream by transforming itself into a bridge, reverberating on into what I suppose Bethel calls its suburbs.


Bethel is on the left-hand side of the map, near Kuskokwim Bay


Bethel residents, circa 1940

Bethel isn't much bigger today. It currently has a population of around 6000, many of whom aren't permanent residents. And there are no roads connecting the town to the outside world. You've got to fly, walk, or travel by boat to get there. All of which makes Bethel an unlikely location for what's shaping up to be the most-publicized hoax of 2012.

At the beginning of June, fliers appeared around Bethel announcing that a Taco Bell restaurant would be opening there in time for July 4th. The flier said that positions were available at the restaurant, and listed a phone number for those seeking employment.

Bethel has only one fast-food restaurant, a Subway, so the news that Taco Bell was coming there created enormous excitement. Hundreds of people phoned the contact number -- only to discover they had been taken in by a hoax. The number connected them to a (very annoyed) local resident who wasn't affiliated in any way with Taco Bell.

The fliers turned out to be the result of what local police described as a feud between two Bethel residents. (The names of the two haven't been released... or, at least, I haven't been able to find them.) One of the feuders posted the fliers, listing the other guy's phone number, as a prank. The Anchorage Daily News described it as an "evil hoax."

There was great disappointment in Bethel when everyone realized Taco Bell wasn't opening there. But the story of the taco-loving town made national news, and thereby came to the attention of Taco Bell, whose PR people realized they had a great publicity opportunity on hand.

So Taco Bell arranged for a food truck to be flown into Bethel, and on July 2 gave away over 6000 free tacos to the townsfolk. Most people in the town seemed to appreciate the publicity stunt. Though one resident suggested Taco Bell might try adding some Alaskan-themed ingredients, such as moose or cariboo taco, to its menu.


The Taco Bell food truck arrives by air in Bethel


Bethel residents get their tacos

Taco Bell, of course, is no stranger to hoax-themed publicity. See the Taco Liberty Bell hoax of 1996.

Links: kyuk.org, ktuu.com, Washington Post.

Posted: Tue Jul 03, 2012.   Comments (4)

Rachael Ray Cooks Her Family and Dog — For over a year, a picture of the Oct 2010 cover of Tails magazine has been circulating online. The image suggests that Rachael Rays practices cannibalism and eats dogs.


Of course, the cover is fake. The original cover included appropriately placed commas —"Rachael Ray finds inspiration in cooking, her family, and her dog."


I'm not entirely sure where the fake version of the cover first appeared. According to wlwt.com, Funny or Die was the original source. Though I can't find it there. But it was posted on Food Network Humor back in March 2011, and I suspect that may be the source from which it first went viral.

Tails magazine, fearing that many people were being led to believe that their editors were incompetent at grammar, recently posted an official statement to set the record straight:

Hi TAILS Fans–
They say there is no such thing as bad publicity, and we do love a TAILS cover gone viral!
However, the circulating cover from October 2010, featuring our friend and all-time animal lover, Rachael Ray, was indeed Photoshopped.
We want to assure anyone who has stumbled upon the cover, that the image being circulated is in fact an unauthorized ALTERED cover.
The image posted here is the actual cover that was printed, WITH commas!
We do get the joke, but just want to make sure we set the record straight, for our sake and Rachael Ray’s (and her family and her dog, of course).
Thanks!
The TAILS Team

Posted: Fri Jun 29, 2012.   Comments (3)

What do the lines on Solo Cups mean? — Recently a graphic began circulating on facebook, pinterest, etc. suggesting that the lines on Solo Cups were intended to indicate proper sizes for popular alcoholic drinks (liquor, wine, and beer):


The Solo Cup company responded by posting a message on its facebook page, explaining that it never intended the lines to mean any such thing. Although it conceded that the lines could be used for this purpose. Evidently it was worried about being seen as promoting binge drinking, so it offered some non-alcoholic drinks that the lines could also be used to measure, such as water, juice, and chocolate milk. (click to expand image)


Posted: Sun Jun 17, 2012.   Comments (3)

Watch out for fake pig ears —
Pig ears are a popular snack in China. So unscrupulous food sellers have figured out a way to make fake pig ears out of gelatin. Given that the real pig ears aren't expensive to begin with, what's being put into the fake ones is dirt cheap and potentially harmful, consumers are being warned. See below for advice about how to know if you've been served a fake pig ear.

Fake stewed pig ears pose health risks
chinadaily.com

Some stewed pig ears have been made from chemicals that could cause blood and heart problems in East China, sounding a fresh alarm on food safety. The popular Chinese snacks sold at a market in Ganzhou, the second-largest city in Jiangxi province, were made from gelatin and sodium oleate, the food safety office under the Jiangxi provincial health department said on Tuesday...
According to Yang Fan, a researcher at the Green Beagle, an environmental protection non-governmental organization based in Beijing, there are ways to distinguish fake ears from real ones. Hair and capillaries usually can be seen on real pig ears, while fake ones do not have hair or capillaries, Yang said.

Posted: Tue May 22, 2012.   Comments (2)

Glued Meat —
Another restaurant scam to watch out for: That expensive steak you ordered may really be pieces of scrap meat glued together. I'd never heard of this 'meat glue' before. Apparently there's very little way to tell if it's being served to you... if the meat is glued together by someone who knows what they're doing. But if an amateur did the gluing, the meat will fall apart as you slice it.

Steak Or Fake? How To Spot 'Glued' Meat
denverchannel.com

It's white, powdery and can turn chucks of beef into a single piece of steak. Most diners probably are not aware that some chefs can use a substance called transglutaminase to bind pieces of meat together. This "meat glue" has been a part of the food industry for decades, where it goes by the name TG or Activa.

Posted: Tue May 22, 2012.   Comments (1)

Fast-Food Tattoo Guy —

The "Fast-Food Tattoo Guy" image has been floating around the internet since 2009, at least. It's not a very good fake. Which is to say, it doesn't appear that many people have been led to believe, on the basis of this photo, that some large, cheeseburger-loving man actually decided to tattoo himself with the logos of fast-food restaurants.

Nevertheless, I'm always curious about where these fake photos originally come from. In the case of this photo, I tracked down the original to a series of photos taken by photographer Philip Greenspun at the Newport Jazz Festival in 2005. He took several shots of this guy sitting on the beach, eating his food, and listening to the music. He titled them, "fat shirtless guy eating cheeseburger."

Greenspun seems to have an ongoing interest in taking pictures of overweight Americans eating. For instance, he has a series called Fat People Eating in Epcot. And here he describes why he's interested in photographing fat people eating:

Most of it is that I think that better diet pills will be developed some time within the next 100 years.... The photos will then become a curiosity for people in the year 2100.

I don't know who added the tattoos to Greenspun's Newport Jazz Fest picture.


Posted: Sat Apr 28, 2012.   Comments (0)

Woman dies after trying to live on sunlight alone — The NY Daily News is reporting (via the Tages-Anzeiger) that a Swiss woman died after deciding to embrace the philosophy of breatharianism and live on sunlight alone:

Swiss woman dies after attempting to live on sunlight; Woman gave up food and water on spiritual journey
nydailynews.com

The Zurich newspaper reported Wednesday that the unnamed Swiss woman in her fifties decided to follow the radical fast in 2010 after viewing an Austrian documentary about an Indian guru who claims to have lived this way for 70 years.
Tages-Anzeiger says there have been similar cases of self-starvation in Germany, Britain and Australia.
The prosecutors' office in the Swiss canton (state) of Aargau confirmed Wednesday that the woman died in January 2011 in the town of Wolfhalden in eastern Switzerland.

Here's the trailer of the documentary she was inspired by:


Posted: Thu Apr 26, 2012.   Comments (3)

Start Cola Earlier, says the Soda Pop Board of America —

At first glance, this appears to be a vintage ad by the "Soda Pop Board of America" extolling the virtues of drinking cola at an early age. It's been circulating around the internet for quite a while, during which time many sites have angrily responded to the claims made in the ad.

For instance, the Queen Anne Chiropractic Center declared that the ad demonstrates "just how wicked the Mad Men of yesteryear were." The parenting blog babble.com wrote: "We all know that, on occasion, advertisements can offer some fairly crappy advice. Back in the day, though, ads had no shame." And NaturalNews.com offered the ad as evidence that, "Soda companies, much like drug companies, have relentlessly tried to convince parents that forcing their products onto their children is a smart thing to do."

I could go on, but I'll cut to the chase: the ad isn't real. It's just a very successful vintage-ad parody created in 2002 by RJ White, who explains its full provenance on his blog Ice Cream Motor:

About seven or eight years ago, I made this fake ad, exhorting parents to give soda to their babies. It was done on a bored afternoon when J.D. Ryznar asked for someone to make that very specific thing on his livejournal. I whipped it together, posted it to the web, joke over.

THEN. A couple of years later- it started showing up online, in those weird lists that pop up every so often with a "Oh man, ads sure were strange back then, weren't they?" theme. Thing is, those ads are largely real and mine is not and very obviously so.

White links to the original livejournal post that inspired him to create the ad. His ad seems to be currently enjoying a fresh wave of popularity thanks to tumblr and pinterest which are presenting it to new audiences, many of whom (once again) seem to be accepting it at face value as a genuine vintage ad.
Posted: Thu Apr 26, 2012.   Comments (11)

F*** The Diet? — Many people thought this was too weird to be true, but apparently it's real. Multinational mega-corporation Unilever is running an ad campaign in Germany for its "Du Darfst" line of food products that features the English slogan "Fuck the Diet!"

It's kinda like if McDonalds were to unveil "Fuck Eating Healthy" as its new ad slogan.

A Unilever spokesperson offered this explanation:

"Although the current Du Darfst campaign has become a bit of a talking point in Germany -- as effective marketing should -- it is targeted specifically at German consumers and uses language that we do not believe most German consumers find offensive. This is because the term in the campaign is frequently heard on German TV and radio, and is used in newspapers and magazines, and in the context of 'let it be' it is not censored or seen as inappropriate by most German consumers."



Posted: Tue Apr 17, 2012.   Comments (5)

The Saint of Rice Excrements — Back in ninth-century Japan, there was a religious charlatan who earned the title bei-fun-hijiri or "saint of rice excrements". Before telling how he acquired this title, I should relate how I came across his story, which was in a rather roundabout way.

First, I came across a post on the Of Small Wonders & Great Wanders blog about the ancient art of self-mummification, developed by ascetic monks of the Shingon sect in northern Japan:

It was initiated by Kobo Daishi (774-835), who took the decision to end his days meditating in a cave. His disciples later found that his body was mummified, which was quite mystical! The Sokushinbutsu tradition developed from there and consisted on willingly becoming a mummy by having a special diet to dry your body.

This led me to wikipedia page about Sokushinbutsu, which further explains:

Sokushinbutsu were Buddhist monks or priests who caused their own deaths in a way that resulted in their mummification. This practice reportedly took place almost exclusively in northern Japan around the Yamagata Prefecture. It is believed that many hundreds of monks tried, but only between 16 and 24 such mummifications have been discovered to date. The practice is not advocated or practised today by any Buddhist sect...

For 1,000 days the priests would eat a special diet consisting only of nuts and seeds, while taking part in a regimen of rigorous physical activity that stripped them of their body fat. They then ate only bark and roots for another thousand days and began drinking a poisonous tea made from the sap of the Urushi tree, normally used to lacquer bowls.

This caused vomiting and a rapid loss of bodily fluids, and most importantly, it made the body too poisonous to be eaten by maggots. Finally, a self-mummifying monk would lock himself in a stone tomb barely larger than his body, where he would not move from the lotus position. His only connection to the outside world was an air tube and a bell. Each day he rang a bell to let those outside know that he was still alive.

When the bell stopped ringing, the tube was removed and the tomb sealed. After the tomb was sealed, the other monks in the temple would wait another 1,000 days, and open the tomb to see if the mummification was successful. If the monk had been successfully mummified, they were immediately seen as a Buddha and put in the temple for viewing. Usually, though, there was just a decomposed body. Although they were not viewed as a true Buddha if they were not mummified, they were still admired and revered for their dedication and spirit.


The self-mummified body of Chûkai Shônin

The wikipedia page, in turn, led me to a 1962 article in the Journal History of Religions: "Self-Mummified Buddhas in Japan," by Ichiro Hori. The article provides a great deal of information about the development of the art of self-mummification — much much detail than I'll go into here. The important point (since it leads us to the Saint of Rice Excrements) is that Hori argues that the self-mummification ritual emerged out of the practice of abstention from cereals (mokujiki-gyô). That is, the practice of not eating rice and subsisting only on fruits and nuts.

Abstention from cereals was considered an important training exercise for Shingon ascetics since a) it required a lot of willpower, and b) it was believed to give one superhuman powers. But of course, human nature being what it is, there were those on the no-cereal diet who cheated. Which leads us, finally, to the Saint of Rice Excrements. I'll let Ichiro Hori tell the rest of the story.

There is the case reported by the Montoku Jitsuroku (Official Record during the Reign of Emperor Montoku, 850-58) in which an upâsaka who came to Kyoto in 854 announced that he abstained from cereals. An imperial edict provided him with a lodging in the Imperial Garden named Shinsen-en, and he there became the object of worship by the citizens of Kyoto, who asked him to pray for them and the welfare of their private affairs. Many women especially were dazzled by the brilliance of his reputation. After about a month, however, someone claimed that he was eating rice at midnight and going to the toilet early every morning. Others then spied upon his doings and discovered high piles of rice excrement. As a result, public estimation for him rapidly declined, and he was dubbed a bei-fun-hijiri (saint of rice excrements).

Posted: Tue Apr 17, 2012.   Comments (0)

How To Make A Psychic Omelette — E.J. Gold describes himself as a "psychic cook". Or, at least, he briefly kept a blog on which he described himself in this way and offered various psychic recipes.


His recipe for a psychic omelette starts off in a pretty standard way, but once the eggs have begun to harden in the frying pan, the psychic part kicks in:

8. It's at this point that you begin chanting "OM MANI PADME HUM" until the omelette has cooked to your satisfaction on the topside. Then with a deft scoop of the spatula, send the omelette into the air slightly, just enough to flip it over, and get the pan under it to catch the turned-over omelette just right. This takes a bit of practice. The omelette will always have the same look to it at the exact right turning point...you need to observe it with your full attention to determine when that will be. There's a bubbling effect just before the turn point. Think like an alchemist to get this right.

9. When the omelette is firm, but not overcooked, and definitely NOT browned, it's time to turn it over again for a moment or two, add your internal ingredients such as cheese, yogurt, green peppers or whatever, then fold the omelette in half, slip it onto a prepared plate with all your other items already on it, add pepper or topping to taste, and serve. Now you can stop chanting "OM MANI PADME HUM". You have fulfilled your Way of Service for the moment. And that's how a psychic makes a great omelette.

I'm not totally sure whether he was being serious when he posted this blog (Poe's Law), but given the info in his wikipedia bio, I'm leaning toward the conclusion that he was.

Maybe I'll give this psychic cooking a try one of these days and see if it makes any difference.
Posted: Sat Apr 07, 2012.   Comments (0)

Posted: Fri Apr 06, 2012.   Comments (3)

How To Make Aquarium Cupcakes — These would actually be pretty cool if you made them with jello.


Posted: Thu Apr 05, 2012.   Comments (1)

Why Do You Taste Wine In Restaurants Before It’s Served? —
The traditional explanation is that you taste the wine to make sure it's not corked, but this explanation never made a lot of sense to me. First of all, wine doesn't get corked all that often — I've received corked wine maybe three times in years of eating at restaurants. Second, you could figure out it was corked after it was poured. Why the necessity to taste it first? And third, waiters go through the tasting ceremony even if it's a screwtop bottle or plastic cork, which means the wine isn't going to be corked.

But I recently came across an alternative explanation in Benjamin Walker's Encyclopedia of Esoteric Man:

'tasting' used to be the common preliminary rite in ancient times. Generally the first drink was taken by the chief of a tribe because he had to be served first as the representative of the god. It also symbolically lifted the taboo that prohibited drinking on ordinary occasions, and neutralized the mana that inheres in sacramental drinks. It was also an assurance to guests that the drink was not poisoned.

Even today in western society the man ordering a bottle of wine for his companions, or offering wine to guests, often has the first sip from his glass and then has the other glasses filled. This is a survival of the old 'tasting' custom, by which the host 'approved' the drink, and ensured that it was free from poison. In Moslem countries the ruler had an official taster, and only after he had tried the sultan's food and drink in his presence without ill effects, did the latter partake of them himself.

I have a hunch Walker is right — that there's nothing very rational about wine tasting in restaurants. It's just long-established ritual. But, of course, there are all kinds of odd customs and superstitions associated with wine, so that shouldn't be too surprising.
Posted: Tue Mar 20, 2012.   Comments (9)

That chicken you’re eating… it ain’t chicken — Perhaps everything tastes like chicken because the chicken you get in supermarkets has a little bit of every other animal in it. This is a BBC documentary, but I'm sure what they talk about holds true for every other country in the world.


Posted: Sat Mar 10, 2012.   Comments (0)

The Great Banana Smoking Hoax of 1967 — Brooke Kroeger and Cary Abrams have an article in the Local East Village analyzing the Great Banana-Smoking Hoax of 1967 -- in which a rumor spread alleging that you could get high by smoking bananas. Or rather, get high by smoking "bananadine," created by scraping the inside of a banana peel, boiling the residue, then drying out the residue and rolling it into a joint.

They try to get to the bottom of who started the rumor. One contender is the staff of the East Village Other magazine. Another theory has the singer Donovan as the instigator, through his song Mellow Yellow. Or perhaps it was the singer Country Joe.



Kroeger and Abrams think Country Joe is the most likely original source of the rumor, though they concede that "the Great Banana Smoking Hoax has many mothers."

Whoever started the rumor, it eventually had the great effect of inspiring the federal government to study bananas to determine any psychedelic properties they might have. Just in case bananas might have to be added to the list of controlled substances.
Posted: Thu Feb 23, 2012.   Comments (4)

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